4 Be oe Congress assists fight for peace in Quebec MONTREAL — Quebec dele- gates to the World Conference of Peace Forces held a press conference recently at which they described the proceedings of the Congress, as well as outlining perspectives for peace work in Quebec and around the world. In reply to journalists who wanted to know above all about the role and place of Quebec at the Congress, the delegates said that they had attended on an equal basis with the delegation from the rest of Canada and other countries, and that they had amply spoken about Quebec problems, such as the denial of national, democratic, trade union and other rights. It was also ad- ‘ded that relations among the Quebec delegates and those from English Canada were most excel- lent, in spite of language prob- lems. Similar Problems Jean-Louis Roy, president of the Quebec League for the Rights of Man, said that the Congress had provided him with firm support for the charter which his organization hopes will be adopted by the Quebec government. Madeline Sicotte, vice-presi- dent of the Quebec Teachers Corporation, (CEQ), said that when she spoke of the role of the school in the reproduction of social classes and reactionary ideas, her remarks found a large echo in the commission. The CEQ has pubilshed a collection of all the Congress documents. As a long-term project, the CEQ has set itself the task of getting all references to militaristic ideas and promotion of wars out of school textbooks. Although delegates realized that the problems facing Quebec were little known among dele- gates from other countries, they discovered that millions of work- ers faced similar problems, and that together, they could force appreciable changes. “The Quebec delegates are de- termined to put the lofty prin- ciples set out at the World Con- ference of Peace Forces into practice in Quebec, and they in- tend to work on the level of their respective organizations and within the fields of action specific to each organization,” their report given to the press stated. Labor blasts Brennen statement WASHINGTON—Labor’s reac- tion to U.S. Labor Secretary Peter Brennan’s rosy statement about the “good year” that labor had in 1973 has been caustic. “It’s a ridiculous statement,” said Patrick Gorman, head of of the Meat Cutters Union: “We've had about the worst year in 1973.” “Frankly,” said President Jer- ry Wurf of the State, County and Municipal Employes Unien, “I wonder what Pete Brennan is smoking. I think 1973 was prob- ably the most devastating year we've experienced since World War II. ; “We had high unemployment, we had unprecedented inflation, we had an outrageously inequit- able wage control program and we had the spectacle of an Amer- ican President chiseling on his income tax. If that’s Pete Bren- nan’s idea of progress. God help us; At the close of the World Congress of Peace Forces, held in Moscow, Oct. 25-29, the Con- gress issued a communique summing up its work. With the Communique were statements from the 14 Commissions which met during the Congress. We present here, as part of the series, the statement from the Commission on the National- Liberation Movement, the Strug- gle Against Colonialism and Racism, and the Commission on Development and Eccnomic In- devendence. The process of international detente creates better conditions for resolving the economic and social problems of the Third World countries. So long as these problems remain unresoly- ed or are complicated by imperi- alist interference and exploita- tion, they may touch off new international conflicts and create explosive situations. It is intolerable that in this time of scientific and technical revolution, the legacy of colo- nialism and colonial social struc- tures has not been overcome in a vast section of the globe, and that in many regions of the world there is still hunger, di- sease, economic and cultural backwardness, and poverty. Un- doubtedly so, because all this is aggravated by the blackmail and pressure of international mono- polies, which, hand in glove with local reactionaries, support or install anti-popular and blatantly fascist regimes. The perseverance and con- structive efforts of: the develop- ing countries, fortified by effec- tive international solidarity, could resolve these vital socio- economic problems and improve the living standard of hundreds of millions of people. This could be facilitated by a reduction of military budgets everywhere, by strict respect for the rights of peoples to own and control their natural resources, by greater economic, scientific and tech- nical assistance to the develop-— ing countries without any poli- tical conditions. THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT THE STRUGGLE AGAINST COLONIALISM AND RACISM The peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America are fighting against colonialism, neo-colonial- ism, facism, apartheid, national oppression,-and for national in- dependence and peace. The forces of national libera- tion are one of the main ele- ments of the world-wide anti- imperialist movement, of forg- ing universal peace. The national-liberation move- ments lawfully represent their peoples and countries. The existence today of colo- nial and racist regimes built on terror and truly barbarian exploi- tation of millions of people is a monstrous anachronism. These regimes have the full support of international imperialism, which seeks to preserve them by most disgraceful manoeuvres and un- disguised aggression. Colonialism and racism intensify tension in various parts of the world. Every possible support and aid must be rendered to the lit ition movements of the & African and Latin Amél peoples fighting against col? ism and racism, and for determination and nationals hood. q It is necessary to work’ the full isolation of the cold ist, fascist and racist regime Portugal, South Africa and desia. 7 It is necessary to wort the full national independen peoples still languishing ¥ the colonial yoke of the U States, Britain, France, Holt and Spain. All the peace 10) must work for the complet unconditional implementati0 the many UN resolutions © elimination of colonialism, ¢ heid and other forms of ¥ These forces are also w0 for the fulfilment of the resolution on the Decade 0 tion to Combat Racism ant cial Discrimination. : All the peace forces must for the recognition of ts public of Guinea-Bissau ? countries. q STRIKE IN CHILE SANTIAGO — Most PB workers here are on stfl protest over their low ¥ The strike is particularly tive in the popular quart Santiago. The junta first announe week that bread was to? tioned, explaining that measure was due to a la@ steady supply of flour. ever, few people were vinced, and the shortal bread was then. official) nounced as the result of teeism” by the bakery WY, According to ‘several @F sources, absenteism iS _ 60%. J David Alfaro Siqueiros His art is for the people By AVROM YANOVSKY “In 1911, when the students at the Academy of Fine Arts where I studied went on strike, our demands were simple but appropriate. We demanded sim- ultaneously the elimination of academic methods ond the na- tionalizatien of the railways. We were aware of tke connection between the two things . . . By contributing to the revolution- ary struggle we becanee citizens of a new type. All the painters were. revolutionaries and mem- bers of trade unien arganiza- tions; they established the cen- tral: committee ef the miners and toek up __ responsible posts...” 3 This, from his autobiographi- cal notes, epitomizes* the char- acter of the life’s work of the Communist David Alfaro Siquei- ros, one of the great 20th cen- tury paimters. For throughout his career he connected “the two things” — simultameousty paint- ing in a non-academic manner, murals with revolutionary-na- tional themes, and participating physically in everyday political activity as a Mexican Commun- ist Party member (for a period its general secretary), a com- mander in the International Brt- gade in Spain against Franco, President of the National Revo- lutionary Union of Miners and President of the Committee for Trade Union Unity. In the early twenties, Siquei- ros, together with the both late “Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco founded the art of Mexi- can mural painting so renquned throughout the world.‘ Their themes were: the Mexican peo- ple’s revolution, struggles against social injustice, and par- ticularly in Siqueiros’ case, for socialism. Although they fervently be- lieved that art should be for the people — a “public. art”, and murals the best way to express it, the path to achieve this, both ideologically aad artistically was not easy. But let Siqueires ex- plain it himself, in an interview with the American revolution- ary poet, Walter Lowenfels. fn replying to Lowenfels’ ques- tion about the effect of his army experience on his work — fight- ing as a commander in the Span- ish Civil War, and earlier, too, during the Mexican Revolution of 1911-1917, like most are stu- dents of the period, Siqueiros” put aside his brushes and enter- ed the army, fighting for six years, rising to the rank of cap- tain, Siqueiros said: _ “That period was fundamental for the development of the art- ists of Mexico. Before that, we were typical Bohemians. “Our PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1974—PAGE 8 bodies were in Mexico, but our souls were in Paris, and we did not know our own country. Par- ticipation in the armed struggle brought us the geography, eth- nography and history of Mexico. It brought us into intimate con- tact with the people — peasants, workers and Indians. “Ours was a movement that expressed in large, dynamic form on walls that millions could see, the national and social ee of the Mexican peo- art movement re of two revolutions — the Mexican and the Russian... the Soviet Union, the world Communist movement and the Mexican Communist Party. Without all this there would not have been any Mexican art movement.” % eo % _For his political activity Si- queiros was arrested more than ence. First in 1930, and then again in 1960 he was jailed for eight years witheut a trial, on charges of “tending to cause so- cial dissolution.” Due to world wide protest he was released in ~ 1964, Siqueiros, in explaining his mural “The March of Human- ity” in the resort hotel Casino de la Selva in Cuernavaca, con- sidered the largest mural in the world «(an intricate complex of numerous panels in painting and sculptures), brought forth his basic approach to painting, par- ticularly murals: “It is an opti- cal problem. In easel peinting, the viewer is ‘static’. That means he looks at the work from the front, and doesn’t have to look from one side to the other. In mural painting this is impos- sible. Because of the size of the mural, the viewer can encom- pass it only by walking along- side the length of mural, thus causing a synthesis of static as- pects (the fixed compesition of the painting itself) and dynamic elements (movements made by the spectator). As for theme, the centre ot parriting needs to be MAN and the problems of Man. x # * Siqueires, a Lenin Peace Psize winner, stated: ‘“‘What ¢ all progressive arts is t for peace. Only in a vast # architecture, arising from F fult relations among all PI can we create a truly f great art.” And the following is W? queiros said, is pertine™) what's facing Canadian P® today: ; “The best way to kno kind is to know the men” society of which we OUP form a part — whose ]aly we speak, whose social hie) ours also. If we lack @ 4” wide point of view ,a UW perspective, we fall int: national, but a nation hidebound and chauve _Sketched by Avrom in Mexico, when art students ¢ Siqueiros upon his release from prison in 1964.